How Cool: Details About General Motors’ Upcoming 4G Wi-Fi Hot Spots for Its Cars. It’ll Mean Your Car Will Be a Wi-Fi Hot Spot for Up to Seven Devices

"OnStar ushers in a new generation of connected vehicles next month with in-vehicle 4G LTE, which launches with a trial period of three months or three gigabytes, whichever comes first," General Motors said in an announcement yesterday, April 12, 2014.

The announcement adds: "The 2015 Chevrolet Malibu will be the first 4G LTE-equipped GM vehicle, followed by more than 30 other Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles by the end of the year."

Some more details: "The industry’s broadest deployment of 4G LTE connectivity technology will enable owners of these vehicles to explore new features like a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot capable of pairing up to seven devices. …

"OnStar with 4G LTE brings a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot into and around the vehicle. Pairable devices can include properly equipped laptop computers, smartphones, video game consoles or tablets. According to Strategy Analytics, 74 percent of tablets sold this year will be Wi-Fi only and as many as 91 percent in North America will be used with Wi-Fi as their only connection, meaning some cellular-enabled tablets do not have an active data plan. In most cases, OnStar’s 4G LTE and Wi-Fi hardware come as standard equipment."

As for cost, according to the GM announcement:

Drivers who subscribe to OnStar Safe & Sound or Directions & Connections plans already get a comprehensive suite of safety and security services, and later this year, for $5 more per month, they will be able to get 200 megabytes of data, enough to stream more than 6.5 hours of music, surf the internet for 13 hours or send more than 10,000 emails without attachments, according to AT&T’s data usage calculator.

When data plans are launched later this year, pricing for OnStar customers not subscribed to advisor-based services will start at $10 per month. Additional U.S. pricing is charted below. Pricing for Canadian and fleet customers will be announced separately.

Data/Month

200 MB

1 GB

3 GB

5 GB

OnStar Subscriber

$5

$15

$30

$50

Non-Subscriber

$10

$20

$30

$50

One-time purchase packages are also planned in two sizes, and will be valid for the durations noted below. One-time packages are available as follows:

Data/Duration

250 MB/1 Day

10 GB/12 Months

OnStar Subscriber

$5

$150

Non-Subscriber

$5

$200

For existing AT&T customers, a 4G LTE-equipped GM vehicle can be added to a Mobile Share Plan for $10 per month.